News and some made up stuff too

At a recent bookseller’s trade show author Timothy Egan suggested that there should be some sort of "cash for clunkers" policy for booksellers.

WHAT IF... In record time President Obama today proposed a short-term boost for the flagging publishing industry, a set of rules and regulations promulgated by the Agriculture Department under the heading Feed Your Head (of Cattle) for Farmers, a proposal already nicknamed by Republicans the “Cash for Chapters” boondoggle.

Under the proposed new plan farmers would receive cattle cars filled with no longer fully functioning books. They would mulch them, scatter the resulting mixture on their fields, and thereby raise much more interesting and well-educated cattle at less cost than current methods.

Opponents of the plan, which included all Congressional Republicans, noted the plan pays farmers when local charities and church-sponsored bookstores could simply strew their unwanted books along highways near farms, letting the farmers do the rest.

“This book bill weakens my American values,” said Republican spokesperson Clo Miles. “Where’s the help for big corporate farmers in this proposal?”

Under the new regulations, donors of clunker books receive a gift card to purchase one new book recommended by Oprah. New books are expected to force out the old while supporting publishers and several best-selling authors.

“It’s win win win,” said Al Knopf of Random-Penguin-Harper-Houghton-Harcourt House. “We win win win!”

* * * * *

In other news, actual, real news, a church in North Carolina, with 14 adherents, plans to burn books, including copies of the Bible, for Halloween. At least 298 online news articles cover this event, so it must be true.

Pastor Marc Grizzard told the Associated Press the King James version of the Bible is the only one his church follows. He says all other versions are "satanic" and "perversions" of God's word and he’s going to burn them.

So much for North Carolina. In SOUTH Carolina, kids are being urged to trick or treat for books rather than candy at the Independent Mail newspaper 2009 Literacy Festival. Books, no candy. Guess how well THAT will go over. Children are asked to dress like a favorite character from a book and enjoy games, crafts and story-telling. A free book for every child will be donated by a local foundation. Just no candy.

* * * * * *

Friends of the Plainville Public Library holds the annual book sale this weekend... the Wall Street Journal reports the new Sarah Palin memoir is expected to sell well... Wal-Mart.com has announced it will pre-sell selected new books for $10 each, and many other titles half off list price. For comparison, books now on the New York Times Best Seller Fiction List have an average retail price of $26.47 each.

Wal-Mart is promoting not-yet-published books in order to utilize generous publisher rebates and promotions when most available. Amazon.com has cut some prices to match. It’s a battle of the giants. As the old saying goes they lose money on every sale but make it up on volume.

* * * * * *

The highly progressive Huffington Post online has opened a new section on books and publishing. Right now they are laying odds on the National Book Awards, publishing various book-related blogs, and generally hotting up the world of books for interested readers. You might want to take a look:

NOTES:

The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt & The Fire That Saved America by Timothy Egan. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt hard cover $27. ISBN 0618968415.

Christian book burning in North Carolina:

Current NY Times best selling fiction:

1    THE LOST SYMBOL, by Dan Brown. (Doubleday, $29.95.)
2    AN ECHO IN THE BONE, by Diana Gabaldon. (Delacorte, $30.)
3    ROUGH COUNTRY, by John Sandford. (Putnam, $26.95.)
4    THE LAST SONG, by Nicholas Sparks. (Grand Central, $24.99.)
5    THE HELP, by Kathryn Stockett. (Amy Einhorn/Putnam, $24.95.)
6    HER FEARFUL SYMMETRY, by Audrey Niffenegger. (Scribner, $26.99.)
7    THE PERFECT CHRISTMAS, by Debbie Macomber. (Mira, $16.95.)
8    SOUTH OF BROAD, by Pat Conroy. (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, $29.95.)
9    ALEX CROSS’S ‘TRIAL’, by James Patterson & Richard DiLallo. (Little, Brown, $27.99.)
10  HOTHOUSE ORCHID, by Stuart Woods. (Putnam, $25.95.)

Total $264.67 for an average retail price of $26.47

Books, not candy, for Halloween:

Letters...

We get letters... from all over. From Rodney Davey in England:

“The US continues to puzzle me enormously. At the moment it's the fuss and rage and (so far as I can tell from the news clips) the sheer insanity which has blown up around Obama's plan to introduce health insurance. What's the problem? Most of Europe has had something like it for decades. Is it the perceived cost which is likely to devolve upon the shoulders of the luckier portion of American society? If so, then that sounds like 'bugger you Jack, I'm alright' politics. Or is it because it smacks of 'socialism', a concept more appalling to the average US sensibility, it seems, than Satan himself.  Astonishing. Poor old Obama, he's got his work cut out. Will he be tougher than Hillary C was?”

In August I wrote a column that told the story of Grandma Roseby in Pembrokeshire, Wales. Grandma Roseby is one hundred and five years old and reads six books a week.

Speaking of Pembrokeshire, Tom Davenport wrote:

“The wonderful writer John Seymour lived and farmed there for some years, producing a number of highly enjoyable books on self sufficient farming...

"He eventually...  migrated across to Ireland, where he started over again and wrote “Blessed Isle - One Man's Ireland” in 1992, beginning around his 76th year... John's writing has a great deal of unvarnished charm in its descriptions of the rural and village life he savored.”

On the subject of the Internet vs. reference books. I got quite a few letters, among them this note from Dan Kvaka:

“Funny but all very true. In our health center, our doctors and mid-levels no longer have subscriptions to magazines and journals (except the ones sent for free by drug companies, and loaded with ads for.....guess what?). Instead they have online subscriptions to medical websites. The information changes so fast, printing could not keep up.

"Last week (someone) asked me to set up (her computer) so she could view a YouTube video of a white guy in a lab coat droning on about lyme disease... I asked her, is that actually interesting? She said, Yes, he's the mega-expert and she pointed to the ratings for that video, thousands of reviews and he got 4-1/2 stars.

"All of our providers still have all of their textbooks decorating the shelves in their offices. They don't read them, they don't want them taking up space at home, and they don't want to throw them away 'cause they paid so (goddamn) much for them when they were starving students in medical school.”

On a column about owning way too many books, Nancy Suib wrote:

“REALLY enjoyed this... you have put words to my addiction as well... definitely feel more comforted about it.”

Roger Luckenbach: “Makes me think that at least I am not the only crazed overly literate person. I thought that I had an over-active packrat gene but then a psychiatrist friend corrected me and said I was an esteemed bibliophile. Makes me feel better but still don't have enough room or time for all the books.”

Finally, this school memory from John Bear, concerning first sentences:

“My wonderful 10th grade English teacher, Aram Tolegian, who claimed (as did many Armenians at the time, I suspect) to be a cousin of William Saroyan, gave us the class project of choosing the best first line in American fiction. It was a wonderful and contentious time, and when the final vote was taken, and there was a clear winner, we were all commanded to commit it to memory forever, so of course we did.

"The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as best I could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge."

Thank you John and thank you all listeners and readers. I truly enjoy hearing from you. Has anyone remembered what book that first sentence comes from? No fair looking it up on Google, just because I did.

NOTES:

All Words on Books scripts are archived here.

Specifically:
“Instant Books & Evil Politicians”

“Grandma Roseby in Pembrokeshire”

“Eat Your Phone Book”

“I Fear I’m Not Alone”

“Judging a Book by its First Line, or maybe its Last Line”

“Blessed Isle: One Man’s Ireland” is out of print. It can easily be obtained from a number of dealers at prices ranging from under a dollar to $212. Try this

SPOILER ALERT: Don’t read further if you still are figuring out the provenance of "The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as best I could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge."





– “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe.

Never Could Figure Out How to End It

The Books section of the Sunday San Francisco Chronicle features Grabbers, “a selection of first sentences from new books.”

For example: “I was suspended in eighth grade for bringing my semen to science class” writes Ryan Boudinot at the beginning of his novel “Misconception.”

Being contrary, I wondered about the opposite of “Grabbers.” LAST sentences. From OLD books.

The hapless ending: “That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is ended.” (from “Crime & Punishment” by Fyodor Dostoevsky).

The famous ending: “That’s well said,” replied Candide, “but we must cultivate our garden.” (“Candide” by Voltaire).

The scratch-your-head ending: “I dwell the longer upon this subject from the desire I have to make the society of an English Yahoo by any means not insupportable,” (Jonathan Swift at the end of “Gulliver’s Travels”) “and therefore I here entreat those who have any tincture of this absurd vice, that they will not presume to come in my sight.” Swift prefers impossibly smart and civilized horses to debased human Yahoos, or at least that’s how I read it, but I could be wrong. And the novel ends.

Herman Melville began “Moby Dick” with what became one of the most famous first lines in history: “Call me Ishmael.” The novel appears to end with the sinking of the whale ship Pequod: “Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.”

Wonderful ending. But wait; there is an epilogue so Ishmael can survive to tell the tale. Buoyed by the coffin of his friend, the harpoonist Queequeg: “I floated on a soft and dirge-like main. The unharming sharks, they glided by as if with padlocks on their mouths; the savage sea-hawks sailed with sheathed beaks. On the second day, a sail drew near, nearer, and picked me up at last. It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan.”

Back here in present reality, I asked local publisher, poet and editor Cynthia Frank to share her thoughts on the usefulness of first lines:

“If I'm bored by the first page in a manuscript submission, I'll usually skip around a bit to see if the story picks up. Many authors who are starting out seem to find their voice, their real starting point, a number of pages in. If it's a first novel and I'm intrigued enough to give the manuscript some time, the architecture of the story, and its ending are extremely important. I've read a lot of bang-up beginnings. Not everyone can write a bang-up ending.

“Some newer authors paint themselves into painful literary corners... If the manuscript is both problematic and full of errors (grammar, syntax), reeks of perfume or mold, or is full of hate (race, gender, religion), we'll reject it immediately. Neatness counts, too. I want to be working with authors who respect their own work! A publishing contract is a long-term relationship, not dinner at your favorite restaurant.

“Of course, we spend more time on submissions than the big publishing houses. If you're a Random House editor wading through 300+ submissions each week, that first page is really important! And so is the marketing information and information about the author,” she concludes.

Now Words on Books needs a good last line. Except I don’t have one.

NOTES:

My long-time friend and colleague Cynthia Frank owns Cypress House, Lost Coast Press, QED Press, and EdgeWork Books, all located on 155 Cypress Street, Fort Bragg, CA 95437.

You can reach her at (707) 964-9520 and online:

Recent books and awards include “Spanish-Live It and Learn It! The Complete Guide to Language Immersion Schools in Mexico” by Martha Racine Taylor and “The Dog Walked Down the Street: An Outspoken Guide for Writers Who Want to Publish” by Sal Glynn (winner, IPPY Gold Award for Best Writing/Publishing Book).

Someone has compiled 98 PAGES of first lines, if you dare to look.

Current editions of books mentioned:

“Misconception” by Ryan Boudinot ISBN: 080217065X

“Crime & Punishment” by Fyodor Dostoevsky ISBN: 0199536368

“Candide” by Voltaire ISBN: 0140455108

“Gulliver’s Travels” by Jonathan Swift ISBN: 0199536848

“Moby Dick” by Herman Melville ISBN: 0199535728

“Spanish-Live It and Learn It! The Complete Guide to Language Immersion Schools in Mexico” by Martha Racine Taylor ISBN: 1879384647

“The Dog Walked Down the Street” by Sal Glynn ISBN: 1879384663

Eating Books

We’re making and using too many books. We must reduce the clutter, leave only footprints, clean the skies, save the frogs. I have chosen to recycle books by chewing and eating them raw. Note: this may cause side effects for those sensitive to colored inks or industrial glue.

I no longer eat brightly colored children’s books, by the way, because of the lead content.

Many modern users of telephone services no longer use phone books. First, the type’s too small. Then there are way too many listings in there. What’s the point of having a cell phone in your pocket if you also have to carry a big book with everyone’s numbers in it? You only need to know your friends’ numbers and the number for your dentist.

Rob Pegoraro of the Washington Post’s Help File answers the question “How can I get the phone company to stop sending me phone books? They go straight to the recycling bin at our house.”

Rob’s answer: There is a new service – on the Internet, where most people now look for phone numbers, he says – that lets you see who is publishing local phone books and then tells you how to beg them to stop sending phone books to you.

We just take them as they come. We throw out the old phone books when new ones arrive, as we already do with The New Yorker, The Newsweek, various catalogs, The Sierra Club Bristly Pine Cone Courier, and other publications that end up in the big blue recycling bin outside our front door.

Those who don’t throw away publications in a timely fashion find their staircases blocked by piles of old magazines and outdated phone books.

Once in a while I still use the phone book. This morning I wanted to call my dentist, but I had forgotten his last name, so it didn’t exactly work for me. But if I still had a memory, it would have.

I googled “dentist in Mendocino” and quicker than one heartbeat I found him AND his phone number, PLUS a map to his office, PLUS an offer to compare on Ebay, whatever that means for a dentist. It was way faster than fumbling through the phone book, because I never turn off my computer.

Google: Fast, wastes electricity. Phone book: Slow, difficult to chew and digest.

I’ve come to rely on Internet look-up for words and phrases in my new language, Italian, and for English words I use www.dictionary.com much more often than “The Unabridged Random House Dictionary” I have in my office, despite the lovely polished wood revolving book stand.

If you set up a browser with your favorite reference sites (start with www.refdesk.com) you’ll find up-to-date data faster than you will by pulling out your favorite outdated reference books. I didn’t used to want to think this was true, but it’s true now.

Of course, somewhere they are mining heavy metals and burning coal to power this Internet thing; nothing that good could possibly be truly free.

Certainly I love books and the experience of sitting down with a juicy pile of them. Fiction wants to be savored. Memoirs call out to be chewed upon. But plain information needs only to be accurate and quickly available.

Did you know that Jupiter at its closest is 370 million miles or 591 million kilometers from Earth? Google does, and getting the answer took 26 hundredths of one second.

If you want to test this idea, search Google as well as your favorite reference book for the phrase “eating books” and let me know what you discover.

NOTES:

From the Washington Post online: Rob Pegoraro attempts to untangle computing conundrums and errant electronics each week. Send questions to The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071 or robp@washpost.com. Visit http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward for his Faster Forward blog.

The ALA has decided not to worry themselves overmuch over lead content in children’s books:

From Paul at the UC Davis bookstore:

First the internet tells us to be aware of our kids eating books and getting
really ill.

Then some guy comes along and writes a book about it - a book for kids!!
"The Incredible Book Eating Boy" by Oliver Jeffers, ISBN13: 9780399247491

I Fear I'm Not Alone in This...

Buying books is an irrational act. I can prove this with one quick look around my office. I’ve got a thousand books here and I’ve not read half.

Why is this? For decades my excuse was “I’m running a bookstore.” Although my customers were buying and sometimes reading books, I didn’t have time for that. After I finished staff meetings, meetings with book salespeople, email and promotions, fixing things, thinking about fixing things, hiring people and the opposite, working the front counter, shipping and receiving, going to trade shows and education seminars, and the rest, I was way too busy to read books.

Booksellers don’t read. It’s as simple as that. If they do read, it’s in the corners of time, around the edges of space, in other dimensions. In this world: not enough time.

Now that I’m several years into the space sardonically referred to as “retired” I find I do have more time to read. Not enough time, but more.

Like an already-gorged gourmand who eats out too much, I find myself in bookstores wherever I go, and rarely leave without a couple of books under my arm. Often I get to read part of them, but usually I’m distracted by the next new bag of books from somewhere. It never stops, nor do I wish it to.

And I fear I’m not alone. Many listeners to and readers of this show have told me they can’t stop acquiring books, and reading them. It’s a lovely obsession.

Not long ago I found on a bookshelf in my study an uncorrected bound galley of a book to be published in April, 1998. I dug right in, eleven years late: “Sleeping Where I Fall” by Peter Coyote, the famous actor and reformed hippie. This is a scary good book. Why isn’t it more famous?

It will be good therapy for me, and perhaps instructive for you, if I describe my latest acquisitions here. First step: Admit you are powerless to stop acquiring and reading books.

First, the new, unread by anyone books: I recently purchased Peter W. Stearn’s “A Journey in Time,” a gorgeous hardbound art book depicting the wildflowers of Mendocino county arranged by month of bloom. This is a book I hand–sold many times but never snagged for myself. Now I can tell the difference between Queen Anne’s Lace and Yampah, Yarrow and Cow’s Parsnip, Angelica and Pearly Everlasting.

Other new books I plan to use or read or both: “The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, Volume One,” “Wildlife of the North Atlantic” “The People of the Sea” by David Thomson, “Waking Up in Eden” by Lucinda Fleeson, “Coastal Wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest,” “The Kingdom by the Sea” by Paul Theroux, “Coasting” by Jonathan Raban, “The 25th Hour” by David Benioff, “The Spies of Warsaw” by Alan Furst, “The Language of Bees” by Laurie R. King.

Then there’s a group of books I picked up on various whims in various used bookstores. You’ll see the patterns: “Merda! The REAL Italian You Were Never Taught in School” by Roland Delicio, “The Italian Secretary” by Caleb Carr, “The Piano Shop in the Left Bank” by Thad Carhart, “Gentlemen, More Dolce Please!, An Irreverent Memoir of Thirty-five Years in the Boston Symphony Orchestra” by Harry Ellis Dickson, “Real Men Don’t Rehearse, Adventures in the Secret World of Professional Orchestras” by Justin Locke, “Evenings with the Orchestra” by Hector Berlioz, “The Oxford Book of American Literary Anecdotes,” “The Monopoly Companion,” and “Kipling, A Selection of His Stories and Poems.”

The Kipling book was poised on a sidewalk cart in very good condition outside a metaphysical bookstore in Ashland, Oregon. When I saw the book I knew it finally was time to get to know Rudyard Kipling. I don’t know why that made sense, but that’s what I was thinking as I picked it up and stroked its curry-yellow dust jacket.

Each of these books (maybe with the exception of the Monopoly book) was purchased for a reason. Some I’m keeping for dessert, like the Furst and the Carr; others to read or re-read as background for future travel adventures.

And a few good literary anecdotes might come in handy some time.

And I’ve always wanted to finally, just finally, win one darn game of Monopoly.

.....

Peter Coyote's web site on "Sleeping Where I Fall" .....

Andy Ross: Good Pitch / Bad Pitch

Andy Ross used to own Cody’s Books in Berkeley. Cody’s is no more. Many people miss the original, historic store on Telegraph, and the more modern store on 4th street, both now closed forever. A few even miss the short-run attempt to establish a Cody’s in downtown San Francisco.

Wishing won’t bring Cody’s back, but Andy Ross continues on in his new role as independent agent to the stars, or anyway to writers of narrative non-fiction, history, politics and current events, science, journalism, and cultural subjects in general.

Recently, Andy wrote a useful essay titled “Good Pitch / Bad Pitch: How to Impress those Jaded Publishers.” In the interest of helping would-be writers get published -- as if -- here are excerpts:

Andy begins: ...It is a tough world out there. And if you aren't a disgraced ex-governor of Alaska, it is pretty hard to get a book contract. So here are some tips and examples of weak and strong pitches to make in your book proposal.

Weak: I am willing to go on an 8 city tour (they probably won't send you, and this indicates that you might have unrealistic expectations. They used to let you travel first class and stay at the Ritz Carlton... expect to go by Greyhound).

Strong: I am willing to schedule an 8 city tour at my expense (any other ideas that include "at my expense" are always popular with publishers).

Weak: This would be a great story on Oprah (Uh-huh. It's also the oldest story in the book. Similarly unrealistic).

Strong: I am sleeping with Oprah's hairdresser. (If you are going to pitch media connections, they should be concrete and have reasonable expectations of results. But don't oversell yourself. They can smell b.s.).

Weak: I am willing to go to book signings at my local bookstore (They know that anyway. And this won't sell books).

Strong: I have arranged presentations with the staff at Google. Steve Jobs loves my book and has agreed to purchase 5,000 copies to give to key employees at Christmas time. They are also interested in purchasing non-verbatim electronic multi-media rights as an (application) for the IPod. (This is too good to be true, so you better get Steve to write a letter to that effect. Publishers love sales outside of bookstores. It is like extra money).

Weak: I will reluctantly agree to be on Fresh Air, schedule permitting. (If you are not going to aggressively flog the product, this will not be well received).

Strong: Film rights for this product have been optioned to Stephen Spielberg (There might be a possibility here, but there are many options out with few movies ever made).

Very Strong: Film Rights have been SOLD to Stephen Spielberg. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are signed up. Currently being filmed on location in Montana. (This pitch doesn't happen very often).

Strong: I am the extremely charismatic and controversial governor of Alaska and vice-presidential candidate. (Don't worry that she is inarticulate, has nothing to say, and can't write).

Almost as strong: I am the extremely charismatic and controversial governor of Alaska who has quit with disgrace and lack of dignity. (Hey, it's all about celebrity).

Weak: My friends loved this book. (Your friends won't tell you the truth).

Strong: My mother is the disgraced former governor of Alaska and she loved this book. My former boyfriend hated this book and will go public and tell tawdry and salacious tales about me. (In this business, there is no such thing as bad publicity).

So much for Andy’s suggestions to writers. If you’d like to read Andy’s full blog, you can point your browser to andyrossagency.wordpress.com

NOTES:

Andy Ross’ blog

His agency web site

Grandma Roseby's Story

News from all over the place...

One hundred and five year-old Clara Roseby reads six books a week. She lives in Pembrokeshire, Wales. She likes a good, old-fashioned story, but nothing American, and no swearing, please, we’re British.

Her daughter picks out books for her from the newly refurbished library in Fishguard, twelve miles to the north, on the shores of the Irish sea.

The librarians figure Grandma Roseby has borrowed more than 10,000 books in the past 35 years. And as one local politician likes to point out, it’s all free.

Go Clara! If only we had free libraries in America. Wait a minnit... we do! And when’s the last time you visited your local library?

On another but related subject, news reports say “Competition is growing in the eBook reader market.” Amazon’s Kindle, Sony’s Ereader, and others, want you to download books to read on their machines.

Everyone in the biz is talking about this latest assault on the tradition of ink, paper and glue books sold in brick and mortar, or board and nail palaces called independent bookstores. Big Box outfits and tax-free Internet sales sites have dinged the independents, but many persevere quite happily. Will E books be a final blow?

I’m thinking no. For several basic reasons, electronic books will likely remain a subsidiary market to traditional paper books. Consider the basic essence of a book compared to an electronic device.

Since the first days of moveable type no one has owned “the book.” By contrast, electronic readers belong to particular corporations. They have proprietary formats. They are not compatible with competitors, unless they strike a deal.

The content of e book readers also is proprietary. Even if the book is free, or out of copyright, you are merely licensed to read it. In the end and in the fine print, you do not own what you download.

Amazon has the ability to electronically reach into your machine and simply delete a book, even one you thought you had purchased outright. Amazon recently did just this with copies of George Orwell’s novel “1984" without asking anyone. Overnight the book disappeared from Kindles everywhere. Something to do with legal rights to a particular edition.

Reconsider the printed book. It’s not just monks in cloisters anymore. Anyone and everyone can produce, distribute, sell and read books. No limit to how many you can own. No one sneaks into your study and takes back a book you bought.

With a Kindle in your pocket you will never know for sure when information is being collected about you and your reading habits. What’s to keep Amazon or Sony from inserting live adverts into your book? Internet links to products mentioned in a story? What’s to stop them?

If you buy a book and take it to a grassy bank above a quiet stream to read Shelley or Keats, or “Eat, Pray, Love” or whatever, it’s your quiet stream and your quiet book, good for several lifetimes, pretty much forever. Your book does not need to be upgraded. It will not become obsolete, require a software update or need to be recharged.

Your own personal, private, permanent ownership of what you read, and the printed book’s infinite portability and infinite lifetime is why books have endured. They will continue to be easier to use and more dependable than reading machines.

I’m pretty sure Grandma Roseby in Pembrokeshire would agree with me.

NOTES:

Grandma Roseby’s story...

Blogger Tony Bradley on the PC World online site discussed ebook readers...

Just for fun...

A seamless web of green: The Shallow Water Dictionary

It’s one of those blissful quiet mornings... foggy but no wind, computer but no Internet service... forest but no forest fire.

Ensconced in this blissful quiet space, I picked out a small but lovely book from my favorite bookshelf (favorite bookshelf: the one I can reach from where I’m sitting) and rediscovered a small gem:: “Shallow Water Dictionary” by scholar and Harvard professor in the History of Landscape, John R. Stilgoe.

Professor in the History of Landscape. I wonder how many students aspire to that particular discipline?

This book immediately puts you in the mood to drop oars into shallow water, and manoeuver among the salty dunes of New England. The subtitle of “Shallow Water Dictionary” is “A Grounding in Estuary English.” Stilgoe uses words and the history of words to paint a poetical picture of the coastside transitional lands he clearly loves.

He begins, “In the shallows the oarsman pulls precisely, for in the shallows, a wrong stroke or two, a slight falling off before the wind, means a gentle grounding in clean white sand or grayish-black mud. Navigating the shoals and sandbars and negotiating the creeks meandering through almost limitless salt marsh require continuous picking along, constant choosing, countless corrections of course.”

It soon becomes apparent that the author is using precise nautical terms and their etymology in order to approach a visual description of a very particular landscape. He aims to renew local language and understand the environment by careful attention to how it is named.

Reading Stilcoe is refreshing and reassuring. Refreshing because very few writers paint as well, and reassuring because his brief essay is connected to eons of coastal seafaring and coastal lore.

Another way to say it: It’s as if Henry Thoreau wrote a dictionary.

Stilcoe continues, “Where the rower... meets no other humans, language might be as unimportant as watches or clothes or credit cards. But the rower... intends a book, a landscape history of the realm of estuary and marsh, and pulls as an explorer, as a chronicler... Oriented toward the visual, he still needs to write, and in writing wonders about the quiet, almost mute vocabulary of his neighborhood, his environs. He wonders as he pulls along the creeks. In the quiet, the old language barely whispers.”

He goes on to define “creek” and brackish, seaward, seamarks, skiff, skeg, and many more resonant terms, all the while conveying the majesty of a land that stretches from Maine to Cape Fear in North Carolina.

The entire book might take you an hour to read, but you will savor it much longer than that. It’s a small dark blue hardcover published by Princeton Architectural Press without jacket, and it comes with a ribbon to mark your place. It’s a gift book without any of the dazzle associated with pop culture.

The “Shallow Water Dictionary” is a quiet contribution to deeper understanding. It will put you in the mood to launch your skiff into shallow waters, and go exploring yourself in the landscape of sights, sounds, and words.

NOTES:

“Shallow Water Dictionary” by John R. Stilgoe. Princeton Architectural Press hard cover $14.95. ISBN 1568984081. Currently in print, but difficult to obtain. There are used copies out there for sale, too.

Other titles by John R. Stilgoe: Train Time: Railroads and the Imminent Reshaping of the United States Landscape; Landscape and Images; Lifeboat; Outside Lies Magic: Discovering History and Inspiration in Ordinary Places; Alongshore; Borderland: Origins of the American Suburb, 1820-1939; Metropolitan Corridor : Railroads and the American Scene; Common Landscape of America, 1580 to 1845.

His web site: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~stilgoe/index.html

"Yet the marshes are almost invariably deserted, at least away from the major channels. People tend to find them uninteresting, not variegated enough, monotonous, boring, although finding out what such people think, when such people avoid the marshes, proves a little difficult. Exploring in what is at first glance a seamless web of green undoubtedly pales besides roaring about the open ocean in an engine boat..."

Harshing the Mellow

Is this yesterday? She asks, picking through the pile of recycled newspapers. No, I say. Today is today. Yesterday is yesterday.

It’s the little things, the little precise verbal things, that make a relationship go. As in go South. No, that new sweater does not make you look fat. It’s the fat that makes you look fat. Then she gets mad at me for no apparent reason.

I have harshed her mellow, as one major newspaper says they say in the marijuana patches of Mendocino county. When we travel, people look askance when we say we’re from Mendocino.

In fact, it’s worse than askance. They seriously smirk. You smokie the dopie? Shreddy the hemp-y, bogart the joint and all that? No, we explain. We live in Caspar. You’ve never heard of Caspar, that’s why we say we’re from Mendocino. That’s MEN-DO-CI-NO, on the COAST. It’s cold there. You can’t grow a red tomato, you can’t raise a green pepper, and you certainly can’t grow pot. In a hothouse, maybe. Five miles inland, no problem. but very little dope growing in lettuce peas and potatoes country. We haven’t seen the sun in five months.

When the sun does show up we go around asking each other what is that shiny yellow thing in the sky. Everyone smiles, but in fact no one knows for sure. We could Google it – What Is The Sun? – but we’re too busy watering the lettuce so it doesn’t dry out in the yellow glow.

The sun’s out! my garden-loving weed-pulling wife announces as she runs outside. It ‘s not really “out” I mutter to myself. If it was out, everything would be really dark and cold and that would be highly disturbing. The light is out, but the sun is... what is it... maybe “on.” The sun’s on! Come and look.

It’s good I don’t say this out loud. I know what’s good for me, or at least I’m learning.

An in-depth article in the Washington Post this week reviewed the Mendocino marijuana industry, interviewing pot heads, medical users, growers, politicians, the Sheriff, and others. The author notes that Mendocino’s golden age of dope growing ended when “growing acceptance of marijuana elsewhere in the Golden State unleashed a confluence of demand, tolerance and legal ambiguity rooted in political cowardice.

“The result set in motion forces that seriously harshed the mellow here and brought the ‘war on drugs’ to the one place in America it had never really reached.”

Harshed the mellow. I haven’t heard that since Sir Douglas walked and talked in the park in Mendocino, which, of course, he never did, as the closest Sir Douglas and his famous song hit “Mendocino” ever got to Mendocino was a bar in Wichita, but that’s another story, and there isn’t any park in Mendocino, unless you count Mendocino Headlands State Park, which probably hadn’t been invented when Sir Douglas first sang his famous song, and who knighted him, anyway?

Jean Jacques Rousseau once confessed, in his “Confessions,” that “women, especially great ladies, must be amused, and that it is better to offend them than to bore them; and I judged, from her remarks upon the conversation of the people who had just taken leave of her, what she must have thought of MY silly nonsense.”

Yes dear, that is yesterday’s paper, the sweater does NOT make you look fat, and the sun is out.

NOTES:

Here’s the URL for the Washington Post article, but they may make you register (free) in order to read it.

I have a lovely old Modern Library (#243) version of Rousseau’s “Confessions” complete with dust jacket and “15 cents” penciled on the top. However, it’s long out of print. Here’s the only current paperback version available as a new book:

“The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau” by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. BiblioLife paperback $18.99. ISBN 1103029916

My wife just asked: “Why does he have to confess?”

Thoroughly & Completely Entertaining

What do you call a book that is thoroughly and completely entertaining from start to the final page? I call it fortunate that I accidently discovered the book in the first place. I was browsing in my local independent bookstore when a “Staff Favorite” sticker came up and waved in my face.

The sticker was attached to David Benioff’s novel “City of Thieves,” set in Leningrad during the terrible siege of 1942. Staff member Jeanette Boyer squeezed the following blurb onto a tiny Staff Fave flag:

“You wouldn’t think two young men’s quest for a dozen eggs would prove a dangerous venture, but set it in war-torn Russia in the midst of a Nazi invasion and you have a spell-binding story.”

When you open “City of Thieves” you meet the narrator in Florida, where he has traveled to interview his Russian emigre grandparents.

“I brought a tape recorder with me. I thought maybe we could talk about the war.”

... “You’re forty years old. Now you want to know?”

“I’m thirty-four. I looked at my grandfather and he smiled at me. ‘What’s the matter? You guys were Nazis? You’re hiding your Nazi past?

“‘No, he said, still smiling. ‘We weren’t Nazis.”

Any reasonable reader at this point would expect he’s about to encounter yet another war memoir. But the author undercuts that assumption at the start. Pestered for names, locations, weather conditions on certain days, grandfather counsels the author: “David, he said. ‘You’re a writer. Make it up.”

And so he does, creating a highly believable true-ish story based on highly likely situations. Benioff thus has freedom to tell his compelling tale the way he imagines it. Every page seems real as old shoes stuck in frozen mud. You will get your fill of death and starvation, selfishness and courage, suspense and danger, bizarre scenes and painfully romantic ones. It’s as if Tolstoy had managed to make “War and Peace” both short and very personal.

The story begins, “You have never been so hungry; you have never been so cold. When we slept, we dreamed of the feasts we had carelessly eaten seven months earlier... In June of 1941, before the Germans came, we thought we were poor. But June seemed like paradise by winter.”

Leningrad has become a forlorn city littered with frozen corpses, abandoned to fate, cut off from the countryside, bombed from the sky and mortared from nearby emplacements.

The survivors deal with it in a variety of surprising accommodations. “The boy sold what people called library candy, made from tearing the covers off of books, peeling off the binding glue, boiling it down, and reforming it into bars you could wrap in paper. The stuff tasted like wax, but there was protein in the glue, protein kept you alive, and the city’s books were disappearing like the pigeons.”

An NKVD colonel pulls from prison the narrator and a charismatic friend named Kolya, sparing their lives in return for an impossible task: Go out into the starving city and somehow locate a dozen fresh eggs. The colonel’s wife wants to bake a wedding cake for her beautiful (and well-fed) daughter.

Impossible eggs or instant execution: Kolya and Lev choose eggs. They have four days. The rest of the book details their adventure.

If I was still on staff I would have made “City of Thieves” my favorite as well. When I came to the final page, I said “Wow” out loud. I don’t do that very often.

Author David Benioff is a screen writer and novelist. His first novel, “The 25th Hour,” was made into a feature film directed by Spike Lee; and he has published “The Nines Roll Over,” a short story collection.

NOTES:

“City of Thieves” by David Benioff. Plume Books paperback $15. ISBN 0452295297.

“When the Nines Roll Over: And Other Stories” by David Benioff. Plume Books paperback $15. ISBN 0452286646.

“The 25th Hour” by David Benioff. Plume Books $15. ISBN 0452282950.

In the Land of Long Fingernails

I picked up “In the Land of Long Fingernails” for the macabre title and the nice purple cover. I stayed for the jokes, for the gory details, for the sense of reliving the Sixties, stoned, all over again, but this time stoned in a graveyard in Canada.

The book is subtitled “A Gravedigger in the Age of Aquarius,” and it’s a hoot, especially if you’re a coot who lived through the short-lived Age of Aquarius. Aquarius lasted a couple of years, max.

“In the Land of Long Fingernails” is less deep, so to speak, than “Stiff” by Mary Roach, and not as poetic as books by Thomas Lynch, undertaker and poet, author of a number of seriously literary works.

Following his graveyard employment, “Fingernails” author Charles Wilkins went on to publish a dozen books and became a writing teacher. Here he dives back into his memory, perhaps with a bit of fiction thrown in, to recall a long summer he spent forty years ago at what he euphemistically names Willowlawn Everlasting Cemetery.

“To call (the cemetery) by its real name in this era of inquisitional conformity,” he explains, “would be an open invitation to, at best, a law suit, at worst a contract hit – on me.”

Perhaps Wilkins exaggerates, perhaps not. There are issues of union rules and the abuse of these rules. There are employees hailing from southern sections of Italy, graves dug or undug in the night. Who knows, maybe there’s a whole other story of criminal conspiracy hiding under the surface of this tale, but the surface of this story is strange enough.

How strange? For example: Hundreds of “welfare graves” in the oldest section of the graveyard – city burials, no gravestones – are secretly dug up, the plots emptied, cleaned up, resold.

ACTUAL LATE BREAKING NEWS: “A group of Illinois grave diggers were charged Thursday with running a morbid scam in which they exhumed corpses in a black cemetery so they could resell the empty plots, cops said.
Investigators suspect more than 300 bodies were dug up in the suburban Chicago graveyard and discarded in a pit so the ghouls could cash (in).”
Back to our story: Nearby neighbors find femurs and hip joints in their back yards. They are assured they are animal bones, nothing more, and the objects are hastily gathered up and reburied. “The problem, shrugs (one employee) is that ground pressure and frost keep pushing the bones to the surface. And the dogs and coons just keep digging down to get them.”

Then there’s the gravediggers’ strike that took place during a heat wave. Don’t ask.

Those five months during the Canadian summer of 1969 were an education for Wilkins, more or less as wild as the stuff going on every other place in the Western world in those years.

“For those of you who missed it, or have forgotten,” he writes, “1969 was, among other things, a time of flower children, free love, campus protest, the battle for civil rights, the death of God.” That year half a million seekers got themselves back to the garden at Woodstock, and a pair of US astronauts “planted an American flag on the moon... (and) knocked a golf ball around amid the rocks and moon dust.”

On his first day at Willowlawn Everlasting, Wilkins is shown how to bury the “ornate little caskets” containing cremated human remains.

“Luccio dug a knee-deep hole and said, ‘Throw me one of those birdhouses.’ ‘Which one?’ I said, examining them on the ground. ‘Any of them.’ “I looked at him, thinking I had misunderstood.

“‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘They’re all the same.’”

That sets the tone. So does this advice from another gravedigger: “‘There are two things you have to do to survive around here,’ he told me as he twisted a bud of shredded marijuana into a rolling paper. ‘The first is to pay no attention whatever to anybody in any position of authority – that’s crucial. The second is to spend as little time as possible thinking about reality.’”

Still useful advice for some of us. “In the Land of Long Fingernails” finds humor in the rituals of death and entertainment in the earthy details. All probably much more fun to read about than experience first hand.

NOTES:

“In the Land of Long Fingernails, A Gravedigger in the Age of Aquarius” by Charles Wilkins. WW Norton hard cover $24.95. ISBN 9781602397095.

Cover blurb: “I don’t know how Charles Wilkins escaped my notice until now, but I intend to read as many of his books as I can before I, too, end up in the land of long fingernails.”
– Mary Roach, author of “Stiff”

News | 07/09/2009: Four nabbed in ghoulish scheme at historic cemetary by Bill Hutchinson

Do evil, get rich

Let’s see... Pacifica Foundation, a non-profit progressive radio network founded by pacifists in 1949 currently is $740 thousand dollars in the hole. Our community radio station, KZYX, is about $140 thousand behind. Mendocino’s Symphony of the Redwoods is suffering from lack of funds, so are any number of other non-profits.

Is there anyone or anything not currently in the red zone?

Oh yes, this headline: “Dick Cheney gets $2 mill to pen memoir.”

The most secretive, torture-embracing politician of our time, main brain behind the Bush disaster, gets two million dollars to speak about mishandling the economy, spying on Americans and shooting his duck hunting partner.

Do evil, get rich. It’s the American way.

Publisher Simon & Schuster is paying Cheney, and the same publisher is about to unleash the world’s biggest/fastest most tasteless instant book in history, 500,000 copies of “Unmasked: The Final Years of Michael Jackson.”

One day after Jackson’s death, Simon & Schuster bought the rights and undertook a race with the pallbearers. Jackson died on June 25; the tell-all will be published on July 14.

As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the publisher took only four days from first hearing of the manuscript until it delivered files to the printer. Seven copy editors worked on the manuscript during that period.

Meanwhile, newly-resigned Alaska governor Sarah Palin is writing a book, due next year, for a reported advance of “several million dollars,” according to her agent. At least 20 books have already been published about Ms. Palin, with another half dozen scheduled. No one knows if her resignation will hurt or help her own book, but the betting in publisher world is that it’s better to get these books out fast than to wait.

One former Penguin editor said, “The truth about all these books is that you treat the authors like stocks: You want to buy low and sell high, or buy high and sell even higher. With Palin, you don't know where her stock is going to be in a few years. So you want to sell now.”

Finally, consider the new yearbook published for Vineland High School in New Jersey. When students unpacked their yearbooks they discovered the wrong year printed on the spine.

The publisher apologized and sent 525 stickers to cover 08 with 09. They did not offer to return the $75 to $85 each student paid for a copy of the yearbook.

One graduating student told her local newspaper, "I think they should have checked it out -- just to see if there were mistakes -- before giving them to the school. Or they should've given us better stickers," she said, noting the decals aren't adhering very well.

I can’t finish this litany of bad news without mentioning Amazon and their book reading device The Kindle. News this week is that they’ve lowered prices so you can obtain one for just under $300.

The other news, more technical but potentially much more important: Amazon has applied for a group of patents that may allow them to insert adverts into books you would read on your Kindle.

Lessee... You’re reading along in “Oliver Twist” and you get to the part where little Oliver pleads, “Please sir, I want some more” and up pops an ad for McCann’s Finest Steel Cut Oat Meal. You’re reading Kerouac’s “On the Road” and you find yourself staring at a Ford truck video. Pickapeppa Sauce for Faulkner. Marlboros for Sedaris. Won’t reading be fun one day!

notes...

The Wall Street Journal on the instant Michael Jackson book

Mony Tiksak's Bords on Wooks

Like you, I listen to Mony Tiksak’s Words on Books whenever I can. It’s a really good show, as I think we all agree, and it doesn’t cost this radio station a single penny to produce.

Many Sundays I simply forget to go listen to myself. I already know where I’m going to cough and what I’m going to say. I wrote the script. So I miss it, the day goes on, no big loss.

However, the program that follows Words on Books on Sundays, This American Life with host Ira Glass, is a different bag of bones. It’s a must-listen, driveway-moment stunner of a show that never fails to elevate my spirit and my weekend.

The danger is that This American Life and a number of other expensive programs may soon be subtracted from the play list of this station, due to long and short-term budget shortfalls.

Listeners who have been paying attention already have heard about this dire situation. The rest are beginning to find out now. Programmers are chattering amongst themselves. The Anderson Valley Advertiser is reporting the situation in their reliably unreliable way. The board of directors is yakking. GM John Coate is communicating. The bottom line: We will soon go broke for good unless the station makes some painful changes.

My humble opinion about all this: Lose nothing, keep everything. And I understand why that particular jolly option is rapidly sliding off the table. We have to keep our limited funds for electricity and salaries and all the rest. Other expensive things, like Prairie Home Companion, have necessarily become optional.

Still, I say do not slam the brakes on Car Talk. Don’t end This American Life. Don’t fricassee the BBC or burn down the Prairie. That’s my wish, anyway, and my wishful thinking.

A great number of similar organizations and worthy businesses are bailing the same boat. I was struck by the relevance of this interview with author Patti Callahan Henry, printed in the Fayetteville Observer and distributed by the newsletter Shelf Awareness.

Ms. Henry said, “...I've watched the commitment and dedication that it takes to keep an independent bookstore afloat, viable and interesting... I believe many people love their independent bookstores but don't understand the problems the bookstore is going through. Readers are very upset when a local indie shuts down, yet they don't understand the things they could have done to prevent the bookstore's demise! I think the best things we can do to help save our local indies are to visit them, buy our books from them and spread the word about them. Buy local: It's not just a slogan, but a real way to save our indies and help the local economy thrive."

Henry’s words could just as well apply to this community radio station. We need to think globally and listen locally. Utilize KZYX and pay for it. Cough up money and volunteer time. Double the amount each of us contributes. Stuff like that.

A group of business people and concerned citizens in New England have started a new movement they call the “10-Percent Shift.”

They take a pledge “to shift 10% of their existing purchases from non-local businesses to locally owned and independent businesses.” One member said, “If the five million households in New England take 'The 10-Percent Shift Pledge' we can create thousands of new jobs and keep billions of dollars of economic activity in the region.”

That goes for this station as well. Even though many of us also listen to other radio stations, read newspapers both in print and on line, watch TV, rent movies and play our own music, all of us also make use of this station for entertainment, music and news.

KZYX&Z gives us a feeling. We feel connected to each other and to the wider world.

There is hardly anything more important than that.

It’s your turn to help. Now. Thank you.

NOTES:

Patti Callahan Henry in an interview with the Fayetteville Observer, redistributed by the online news service for the book trade, Shelf Awareness. Her latest novel, “Driftwood Summer” Penguin paperback $15, ISBN 9780451226884, focuses on the complicated relationship among three sisters as well as the challenge of running an independent bookstore.

This American Life has its own financial worries:

“Help Keep the Podcast Free! As you may have heard, last year it cost Chicago Public Radio more than $120,000 to pay for the bandwidth required to deliver our free podcast and streaming files. That's not computers. That's not staff. That's not the production of the show. That's just the server bandwidth required to get the show to you on the internet. In the past we've been able to cover these costs with a flood of small donations—if we can keep that up, we can keep the podcast free. Would you consider helping out? Five, ten bucks—anything you can give will be greatly appreciated!”

Stone's Fall

So I finally finished “Stone’s Fall” by Iain Pears, he of the very hard to spell first name, he of the very entertaining and complicated historical novels, forward slash mysteries. You may remember Pears for “An Instance of the Fingerpost,” which was a smash hit some time ago, and “The Dream of Scipio” from 2002.

When I say “finally finished” I mean it... “Stone’s Fall” is almost 600 pages, weighs a ton, covers a century of time and dozens of characters, not all of whom make it through to the surprising end. Several times along the way I asked myself, “Self, why are you spending your valuable time on this brick?”

I’m still asking myself that. Two weeks of intense concentration on one complicated novel is almost too much for this pea-brain. Next up: “War & Peace” or “Ulysses.”

“Stone’s Fall” opens in Paris, 1953: “The Church of St.-Germain des Pres, at the start of what was supposed to be spring, was a miserable place, made worse by the drabness of a city still in a state of shock, worse still by the little coffin in front of the altar which was my reason for being there, worse again by the aches and pains of my body as I kneeled.”

From Paris we swiftly move to London, 1909, remaining there for about 200 pages; then Paris, 1890, Venice, 1867, and finally back to London.

I am glad I persevered. The book is rich in so many ways: setting, atmosphere, characters, pretty much overstuffed with detail. Then there’s the twisting, surprising finish. Suddenly, in the final pages, the entire novel lights up and appears in a new light, retrospectively. I put down the book and tried to recall aspects of the convoluted plot and complicated characters, thinking “Aha! so THAT’S what happened... I get it now, probably.”

Were there a couple of characters left over? Whatever became of Xanthos, John Stone’s lifelong and ruthless accomplice? Did we finish with Mary, the harlot-turned spiritualist assistant? A few loose ends remain in a book stuffed with minor but intriguing characters.

The main characters will be remembered: First, the astonishing Elizabeth Stone, aka Lady Ravenscliff, aka the Countess Hadik-Barkoczy von Futak uns Szala, aka Madame Robillard. She is someone to admire and to fear.

Then Mr. John Stone himself, central to the story, creator of an armaments empire, marionette-master behind intricate financial and political arrangements.

“Stone’s Fall” is a great achievement, but I’m not certain it’s an altogether satisfying work. Still, you cannot write a book this large and all-encompassing without getting off some interesting observations along the way. These two among many others caught my attention:

On money: “Money is merely another term for people, a representation of their desires and personalities. If you do not understand one, you cannot hope to understand the other.”

On travel: “I wished to meet a man who knew about (Venice) – knew how it worked, that is, rather than knew about its buildings, which is always the easiest thing to discover... I have always found it strange that people are willing to travel to a place, and devote some considerable energy to doing so, yet leave with not the slightest knowledge or interest in the lives of the inhabitants.”

“Stone’s Fall” is an absorbing read, but this may be one of those books to borrow from a friend or library or wait for the cheaper paperback.

NOTES:

“Stone’s Fall” by Iain Pears. Spiegel & Grau (Random House) hard cover $27.95 ISBN 9780385522847.

“The Dream of Scipio” by Iain Pears.Riverhead Books (Penguin) paperback $15. ISBN 1573229865.

“An Instance of the Fingerpost” by Iain Pears. Berkley Publishing Group (Penguin) mass market paperback $7.99. ISBN 0425167720.

NY Times review of “Stone’s Fall”

An excellent blogged review of Stone's Fall.

You won't need those bookshelves much longer...

I’ve been thinking about how I ruin books. Maybe I should go electric, get a Sony E Reader, or an Amazon Kindle 3Dog Fire Starter, or whatever they call electronic book reading devices these days.

My real books are displaying distressing amounts of wear and tear, plus water stains from wet hands.

I have in the past inflicted serious damage upon books, especially novels of great length that take weeks to finish. Take the one before me, for example: “Stone’s Fall” by Iain Pears, 594 pages.

To keep it fresh, I took off the dust jacket and hid it somewhere. When I finish peering at the acknowledgments, outside flyleaf, inside flyleaf, right rear flyleaf, left outside rear flyleaf, typeface explication, table of contents, Also By This Author page, title page, second extra big title page, copyright page, To My Mother page, Part One page, and page one itself... when I finish all those pages and the book itself, I will go hunt for the dust jacket. If I haven’t accidentally torn it, or crushed it under a box, dropped it in the sink, or hit it with a splash of chocolate milk, I will put it back on the book like a clean diaper, protecting the body from dust damage.

These potential disasters would be history if I owned an electronic book reading machine. If you drop Kindle into the bath tub, pull it out immediately. If you do that to your book, well, that’s why they invented the microwave. Tip: Do not microwave your Kindle. It makes sparks and funny noises!

To get my hands on a Kindle, short of stealing it from someone who falls asleep using it in a public place, I would have to buy it for, say, $359 dollars, no sales tax, because this is The Internet.

I’d want that leather book cover, $29.95. After a couple of recharges and some extended excitement downloading things I could have 1500 titles in my hands, some free, others $9.99 each, unless marked otherwise.

Another way I hurt books is I carelessly leave things inside. Last night I dozed off near page 312 and left a bundle of Post-it notes inside the book. This afternoon I realized I had bent the spine by laying other books on top. You can’t do that to a Kindle, unless you rest a chair leg on the screen and then sit down by accident.

I have a lot of books due to lack of electronic book reading machines. Few of my books are well cared for, though most are loved. Some are stacked the way they should be stacked, in tight, neat rows on bookshelves. Others recline sideways and upside down, in piles on the floor, on tables, at my elbow, behind my back, on footstools and on benches in the garden. Some of these books will eventually fall to the ground, get eaten by snails, or stepped on by me, the wife, the cat, or all three of us and this would likely be less of a problem with a Kindle.

This morning in my local independent wood-and-nails bookstore I saw Michael Chabon’s collection of literary essays, “Maps & Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands” and it jumped into my hand. Then I picked up Charles Bukowski’s early poetry collection, “The Roominghouse Madrigals,” to check on a particular poem. Somehow those books followed me to the cash register, two irresistible puppies.

The Kindle experience could be something like that. There are many intriguing titles (online you can: Look Inside the Book!) and it’s easy to buy them. After you have a couple hundred in your Kindle, there’s the question of finding time to read one all the way through.

The Kindle is neat and efficient, and its editorial contents are not likely to rot, mold, bend or get eaten by puppies.

Look at that new Kindle, resting on the empty bookshelf. Kind of makes you want to sit down with a good book, doesn’t it?

a walk on Elk beach, 7 June 2009

Gods Barely Behaving

Artemis is walking the dogs to get out of the house. Apollo is shagging Aphrodite for the millionth time with another million to go (they’re immortal, after all). Old man Zeus is holed up in the attic watching TV, and his wife Hera hasn’t spoken in years. Demeter’s in the garden, Hephaestus is repairing the house, Hermes rides a motorcycle to collect dead souls and Dionysus is mixing songs for his nightclub. Eros is a Jesus freak and oh yes, Ares spends his days fomenting wars in faraway countries.

“ ‘You need a shave,’ said Artemis, standing in the doorway.

“ ‘Mmm,’ said Ares, without turning his head. ‘This War on Terror isn’t producing enough casualties. Bringing in Iran is the obvious choice, but I don’t think they’ve got enough firepower yet. I wonder if I could somehow antagonize Japan?’ ”

The quote is from the novel, “Gods Behaving Badly,” by first-time British author Marie Phillips. In her book the Greek gods are living unhappily together, crowded into a squalid flat full of uneaten food (they don’t eat human food; they just like to look at it) and dusty cobwebs.

“The family had moved there in 1665,” she writes, “when the plague was keeping property prices rock bottom, and just before the destruction of the Great Fire sent them spiraling upwards again. This had been a typically canny piece of financial engineering by... Athena, the goddess of wisdom.”

The gods have always behaved badly, of course, but in the old days humans believed in them, tolerated their faults and feared their arbitrary power. The popularity of monotheistic faiths robbed them of much of their strength.

In “Gods Behaving Badly” Phillips wallows in the fun of imagining Greek gods on the downlow. She spent some considerable time arriving at this idea.

In a short essay called On Writing and Thinking and Lying Down, Phillips says, “I rewrite so obsessively that my computer is littered with files labeled ‘final draft’ ‘final final draft,’ ‘absolutely the last draft,’ and ‘absolutely the last draft with changes.’ The book that I end up with bears little relation to my opening draft or even to the idea that began it.”

On YouTube, in another interview, Phillips continues: “In the first draft (these gods) were very powerful.... I was trying to satirize organized religion a bit, and that didn’t really work for me. And then I realized, of course, it’s more realistic... it’s more fun, to imagine them having been forgotten. They really could be living in a run-down flat in London. It really COULD be happening this way.”

“Gods Behaving Badly” is a great deal of fun to read. Juxtaposed with the unruly and selfish gods are two highly ordinary humans, Alice and Neil, who are slowly falling in love with each other. Alice finds herself the obsessive object of Apollo’s love and Zeus’s anger, expressed as lightning bolts from the sky that kill her dead. With the help of the gods Neil undertakes a quest to bring Alice back from the underworld and, by the way, to relight the Sun, accidently blown out by Apollo.

It turns out one entrance to Hades is located at Angel tube station on Upper Street in the London district of Islington. Hermes uses it all the time to transport souls. It’s down the stairs on a secret platform “on the other side of (a) wall at the bottom that leads to a train to the underworld.”

That particular train is likely to remind readers of Harry Potter’s Hogwarts Express. Even if American readers can’t possibly decipher all the inside jokes, “Gods Behaving Badly” will be a quick and delicious read.

NOTES:

“Gods Behaving Badly” by Marie Phillips. Back Bay Books paperback $13.99. ISBN 9780316067638

A non-visual interview with Marie Phillips

TV interview with the author

Islington described on Wikipedia with literary references to writers Phillips admires, such as Neil Gaiman and Douglas Adams. Adams lived in Islington; Gaiman named a character after the Angel tube station: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islington

Italy, Spring 2009

letter from Italy (3 maggio 2009)

Hello Everyone,

We are happy and safe and about to sail over Tuscany in a balloon...
we are drinking the red wine,
visiting the hilltop villages, and eating the food. The only thing
we,ve done that was terribly upsetting is letting a couple of thieves
distract us long enough to escape with one piece of luggage. This was
the one, of course, with two cameras, our computer (with copies of
every pic and every video we had made), a GPS for driving, and etc.

As a result Tony got to explain the whole thing in Italian to a
carabiniere at the complaints office just down the block from the AVIS
office where this took place. Just another opportunity to speak
Italian, I guess.

But as a result of this we wont be taking pix or sending many emails.
I know all our friends will understand. Ir is an important life
lesson... to focus on the moment, on what we see and hear and feel,
and let the objects fly away if they wish to do so.

I also lost my reading glasses for music, and several books I was
reading, and our beautiful Florentine stationery.

Please send us your best thoughts and sympathetic vibrations, but tea
in the garden is waiting for us, it is a lovely day in Montisi,
Tuscany, with people we like, and after all we are still where we want
to be.

Love and hugs to all, Tony and Joselyn

another letter from Italy (21 aprile 2009)

ciao a tutti,

Already, just a week in Italy and we could fill a book.... we are
happy and well fed, and astounded. In short: posso parlare italiano!

Lake Como -- bellissima.... more beautiful than we expected, with
Swiss alps in view to the north, mountains all around, villages, ducks
(we named them Muck and Squawk)... Quiet, not too many stranieri like
us... felt like a true discovery.

Of course, getting off the train in Monterosso (CTerre) was a shock...
hordes, crowds, cohorts, whatever, pushing on, pushing off.... ouch. I
hated every second until we located our lovely albergo, got situated
and got hiking... many miles of coastal trails, and all the views,
flowers and German marchers complete with double hiking sticks you
could ever hope for.

At one point the local train was 2 hours late, and later we discovered
a woman had fallen or thrown herself on the tracks and was killed. One
death = two hour delay.

We are leaving here (Monterosso) a day early in order to walk through
Pisa and land for a day in Lucca before going to Firenze on the 23rd
for a week.

Italy -- I recommend it to all. Wonder why more people haven't heard
of this peninsula? It sits somewhere between Croatia and Africa.... I
do believe when more people hear about this country they'll want to
visit. They even have 25 variations on coffee!

abbracci... Joselyn and Tony

letters from Italy... 25 aprile 2009

Hi,

We are in Florence now. Arrived 2 days ago, and the first night we joined
a fun restaurant club - the Teatro del Sale, which was crazy fun. There
are club rules - mostly to not be an isolationist, but share in the
conversation. Pay a set fee, and at 7:30, the doors are open to rush in
and get a table. Then food is displayed on a big table and people line up
to get it. The kitchen with flames and chef hats is in view. Every time a
dish is created, it's placed on the food table. The shouting chef
announces to the room (in Italian, of course) the new dish, and people
scramble to get a plate. More rules: do not pile food up on your small
plate, just take it, return it later to the dirty dishes window, and get a
fresh one. The good part is the chef is famous here and this is his
entertainment. All the dishes were delicious and in this format we could
try many local foods. The atmosphere was festive, in this large room with
columns, and a stage for the entertainment after the dinner.

After about an hour of eating, there is a show. The show for us was a 70's
band of four Italians playing on amplified acoustic guitars singing Simon
& Garfunkle, Carol King, Crosby, Stills and Nash, and Cath Stevens songs
with Italian accents. It was interesting hearing their versions of these
songs not always in perfect harmony, but with great spirit. The guitar
playing was actually the best and we did enjoy it.

We sat with a group of Italian women friends whom we met at dinner. They
all were divorced. Most were married for 20-30 years, had kids and were
now enjoying the single life. They were very friendly and lots of fun.
Tony used his Italian to communicate which was the only way we could have
had the conversation. He gets compliments often for his Italian and it's
so much fun and helpful.

Tony is making his first espresso here in our apartment and is using a
brass door knob to tamp down the coffee. There are lots of interesting
adjustments when traveling, aren't there?

More later. This is just "a day in the life of the Italian travelers".

Ciao,

Joselyn and Antony

A Kick in the Boot

We’re back from five weeks in Italy. As previously noted: The Coffee, the Women, the Pizza, the Light, the Architecture, the Gondolas, the Pesto, the Food, the Wine, the Food.

Here in northern California rhododendrons continue to bloom in deep burgundy, blood red, royal purple, even white with black speckles. In our back yard flowers now, dead-heading later. Out in the forest a last few wild pink flowers adhere to ancient branches.

We’re shaking off jet lag by reveling in local sunshine. The mind understands it’s high noon, but the body balks, and lags nine hours behind. Considering how long this dislocation lasts, it’s more like Propeller Lag than Jet Lag. Right now it’s five in the morning and both of us are wide awake. Too bad no one else is.

We ventured into Mendocino on Memorial Day weekend, known locally as the Summer Fog Celebration. The Farmer’s Market was full of friendly farmers, and fishermen, and artisan bread chefs. Tip: strawberries are fantastic right now.

Our quest to locate bookstores in Italy was largely successful. Books were everywhere, a few in English and other non-Italian languages, at newsstands and gift shops, autostrada stops and even in bookstores.

In Florence we specially enjoyed the Melbookstore, actual name, part of a regional bookstore chain. Libri! Musica! Video! ... and a blissfully quiet coffee shop a block from the Duomo, with fresh squeezed orange juice and fine Italian coffees.

Italians learn English in school, starting as early as pre-school. Children are too shy to try out English on strangers, but when you turn away they call out “Good Bye-eee!”

Some years ago, members of the Italian parliament were promoting bills to reject English words and English syntax, all of which are rapidly sneaking into the language of Dante (and Roberto Benigni).

There is a Manifesto in Defense of the Italian Language. Its supporters say it’s not so much the use of English words like “computer” or “OK” but rather the use of English syntax. A grammatical Italian would write, “Thank you for not having smoked” but English-influenced signs in airports and elsewhere now use English syntax: “Thank you for not smoking.”

Saverio Vertone, one of the signatories, said he fears "colonization of syntax." He noted “The Italian language is not rich with words (but) it compensates for its relative poverty with a wealth of syntactic constructions, which lend it great subtlety."

Signor Vertone was careful to point out that despite the Manifesto, Italians are not “excessive” about their language, like the French. French language purists insist that a “computer” is an “ordinateur.” In Italy a computer is a computer, email is email, and OK is O-kay-EE.

One online commentator, who threw up his virtual hands and posted “Mama mia!” noted that English is succinct. In English one might post “Passenger Emergency Exit.” In Italian this could likely read: “L’uscita comune per i passeggeri del treno in caso di emergenza.” Three words or twelve. Which is better in an emergency?

So. It seems we’re home, still living on Italian time, reacquainting ourselves with the cat. California is as beautiful as Italy. And in our back yard, the rhodies still are blooming.

firenze

italy april may 2009

The Coffee, Women, Pizza, Light, Architecture, Gondolas, Pesto, Food, Wine, Food

The other day I received an excellent letter from my friend, author Todd Walton. I had asked him for some words about his new collection of stories.

The new book is titled “Under the Table Books, A Novel of Stories,” written as well as illustrated by Todd Walton and published this month by Lost Coast Press in Fort Bragg. Todd and his wife, cellist Marcia Sloane, currently are on a book tour through the Pacific northwest.

When they’re in town you can find Todd and Marcia performing music and stories together. Todd is a composer and guitarist as well as a writer of whimsical, moving, stories. His most recent previous collection was “Buddha in a Teacup” and you also can find his work in audio format.

This is Todd’s letter:

Dear Tony,

I hope you have a splendid time in Italy. I've never been, but I hear nothing but good things about the place. The coffee, the women, the pizza, the light, the architecture, the gondolas, the pesto, the food, the wine, the food.

(Since you asked,) "Florence" is really my story. All of them are. And this is the largest work I've published. Some of these stories are recorded on the CD I made with Marcia: “I Remember You.”

The outside story about this book is as follows:

In 1992 (living in Sacramento) I wrote a collection of eight or nine stories (I have a copy around here somewhere) entitled “Under the Table Books.” The stories were set in an anarchist bookstore, but they (the stories) were not otherwise connected. Consciously. I made fifty photocopies of the collection and sold them at readings. The copies went fast and reaction was swift – write more of these goodies, they make us happy.

I spent a couple years writing more bookstore stories. The characters turned out to know each other and the stories added up to a novel. I made a few copies of that second edition and illustrated it with a dozen or so black and white photographs. I gave these copies to a few trusty readers. Reaction was swift. Make more copies and spread them around. But first I moved to Berkeley.

Once settled in Berkeley, I decided to replace the photographs with pen and ink drawings, and in 1995, for the third edition, I created one hundred and fifty bound photocopies and gave them to friends and sold them at readings. The copies went fast and reaction was swift – get this book published!

I showed the manuscript to four literary agents. Reaction was swift and unanimous. "You will never convince a mainstream publisher to take a chance on this crazy thing."

Ten years went by. Then in one amazing stretch of five days in 2005 I received four letters and three phone calls from people (of all ages and political persuasions) encouraging me to reissue “Under the Table Books.”

So I read the book for the first time in a decade and was greatly inspired to write new stories to go with the old. One thing led to another and I wrote forty-four new chapters. I then shuffled these new tales into the existing manuscript and rewrote the whole thing. Then I put the book away for a year, rewrote it yet again, and made fifty copies for all the people clambering for copies. That was in 2006. Now it is 2009 and “Under the Table Books” has finally been published. Just in time to save the world.

It really is a novel, though the stories may be read as free-standing stories, though I think it ultimately succeeds more profoundly as a novel. The End.

Thanks and bon voyage, Todd

NOTES:

“Under the Table Books, A Novel of Stories” by Todd Walton. Lost Coast Press hard cover $26.95. ISBN 97819354489020. Illustrations by the author.

Todd Walton’s web site

Anyway, They Won't Be Able to Read It

Some time in March, in Maine Township, which is not in Maine but in fact is an unincorporated region in central Illinois, someone just about lost their home burning books in the fireplace.

North Maine Fire Marshall Arnie Witzke said gaps that formed in the mortar between aging fireplace bricks allowed outside air to get inside the fireplace. “That, combined with the extreme heat generated by the large amount of paper material and ink being burned caused a fire to grow in the chimney and fireplace wall,” Arnie said.

This story is repeated every winter anywhere wood stoves meet old chimneys. However, it was the book burning aspect of this conflagration that got my attention.

What were the titles of the burned books? Why those particular books? How much heat would an old book give if an old book could give heat? Are burned books hotter than scorched newspapers? Were some books saved for later? If not, what happened the next cold night? Is burnt ink toxic? Did the homeowner run out of furniture to burn?

We need follow-up on this story. We need details. We need safer chimneys.

Meanwhile, in Canada, a 1,553 page, five inch thick Webster’s Dictionary borrowed from a library in Ontario in 1899 was returned 110 years late. The fine would have been $9,000, but local librarians waived it.

"It's amazing ... It's great to see a book from here come back after all this time. I'd just like to see one (returned) that's just been gone a month," librarian Ruth Blanchard said. "And I've been involved with libraries for 36 years and I've heard all the excuses," she added.

There’s more to this story, but all that’s important is the book got returned.

You don’t need to know that Mutt Baird, scion of the Baird family, carried the dictionary on a skid from Canada into New York over the frozen St. Lawrence river, then journeyed to Colorado, where the book languished in the Rockies for more than a century, from where Uncle Mutt’s descendants returned it to Canada this month.

Returned just in time for big printed dictionaries to be replaced by their online counterparts. Thanks a lot, descendants of Mutt. You might have thought of that before you went and invented the World Wide Web.

When I scan the World Wide Web for news about books I find stories that read like this one: Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, is complaining that “school reforms have destroyed English as a subject and denied children the chance to read books.”

British literacy as measured by standard tests is well up, but the teaching of English, in all its subtlety and glory, apparently is being overlooked.

In a speech to her association, Bousted said “...literacy, as a subject, is based on the naming of parts. Children rarely read whole books; they read parts of books - extracts. These extracts are mined for adjectives, and adverbs, and active verbs, and nouns.

“And so a whole generation of children have lost the opportunity, in school, to learn how to talk and how to listen to others," she said. "And for those children who spend their lives at home cocooned in front of the television, interacting with no-one, this loss will be incalculable."

A high level to-do in London the other day makes Bousted’s argument for her.

When photographers snapped pictures of a Secret document being carried into 10 Downing Street by Britain’s most senior anti-terrorist policeman, those who could read were accidentally alerted to a planned operation against a suspected al-Qaeda cell.

Bob Quick, the Assistant Commissioner who didn’t close the cover on these secret documents, has apologized and resigned. Photographer Steve Back, who also is a magistrate, said “(the Assistant Commissioner) looked at us. He knew we were there.”

The photographer claimed he had tried to warn the Government that photographers were able to read top secret papers when people go through the door of 10 Downing Street. He said, "I have told Downing Street before that the quality of lenses and digital lenses means that we can read ministerial papers.”

This proves it. Photographers, at least some of them, can read.

So, officials: Go ahead and wave your secret docs at the fish and chips crowd. They won’t be able to read them anyway.



NOTES:

Book Burning Leads to Chimney Fire: "If you have a fireplace, and if you burn wood, you should have it cleaned out every year," he said.

Book Returned 110 Years Late

School Reforms teach literacy, not English

Bob Quick resigns

Frogs in the Sun

We were sitting around in the late March sunshine, four guys of a certain age, talking, surrounded by green growing things, and birds, and women and children, as old men ought to be surrounded in the spring.

We were talking about a village in Zimbabwe in the 1990's where 400 sculptors had gathered in a cooperative to produce art. The only rule: No copying each other. People came from the wider world to see the village and buy the art.

We were talking about the death of newspapers. One of us asked, rhetorically, did we think there would be any newspapers left publishing on paper in our lifetime? And if not, what comes next?

Newspapers, like books, are the products of a long chain of events. In the case of books it may be years from the idea to the book in your hand. In the case of newspapers, maybe a day or two, idea to print.

You pick up the finished product, look it over, skim to the Sports or read a chapter in a book that interests you. You can read as much or as little as you wish, but someone else thought it through and laid it out before you picked it up.

On the Internet, right now, you can design your own book and create your own newspaper. If all you want to read is Sports, that’s all you will read. You will not have to page through the news, Home & Garden, or anything else. Just Sports, if that’s what you want.

Same for books. Leaving aside stories, tales, novels, comics and poetry, leaving fiction aside, you easily can look up a topic on Google, research Wikipedia, visit any number of web sites in any number of places, and make your own book, at least in your own mind.

You won’t be going on a book tour. You won’t write like Rebecca Solnit or have adventures as thrilling as Bernard Cornwell’s inventions, but you can find the facts yourself.

Then there’s the bookstore. When you enter a good one, you enter into someone else’s mind. I always thought of my bookshop as a mind filter. There’s a universe of books and newspapers out there, but in my store you find only what made it through my personal filter. Books I liked even before they were published and hoped you’d like. Picked for you, or someone just like you.

So the question came up, Tony, you’re about to travel in Italy. What are the bookstores like over there? And what about libraries? Do they even have libraries with free lending over there?

Good question, my friend. I’m going to look around and ask questions. I have seen modern Italian bookstores, sleek and clean, in the big cities. I don’t remember seeing bookstores in other places, little towns. I don’t remember seeing bookstores anywhere in Italy but in the cities.

Same for libraries. There are famous and important libraries in Italy, but they are mostly museums for manuscripts. They keep the originals safe and scholars consult them in white gloves. Italy never had Andrew Carnegie to build brick palaces throughout the land for free lending libraries. Are regular books available for regular people in regular libraries? I have no idea.

* * * * *

Children raced around the garden, making trails that never were, climbing trees, shouting to each other. The women came and went, staring. In silence they watched us, squatting in the sun like frogs, shooting the spring breeze. Waiting for instructions.

It is so fine to be an old frog in the sun, pondering the world and its many wonders. No need to jump. No reason, right now, to go inside and do the dishes.

Spring, sun, and friends. Italy, books, and libraries, and newspapers and African sculptors who invented a tobacco farm into a cooperative village in the former Rhodesia.

How are they doing in that village now? I asked. Zimbabwe is a mess.

They’re still there; I think they’re doing fine, my friend said. That’s what he said. Maybe someone should go look.